Thousands of Foreign Students May Have Overstayed Visas Through Employment at Possible Shell Companies

[sureshkonda]

A months-long joint investigation between NBC Bay Area and NBC News found thousands of foreign students may have used false employment records at more than a dozen potential shell companies to illegally stay in the country after attending American universities.

Many of those students may have used the companies as steppingstones to land jobs at major U.S. firms, according to government officials and an analysis of student LinkedIn profiles.

Foreign students studying in the U.S. can work in the country for up to three years using the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, an extension of the F-1 student visa program. OPT is designed to give those students additional hands-on work experience in a field related to their area of study.

Among the top 25 OPT employers are industry leading firms such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Apple, according to records from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP). But scattered among those corporate powerhouses are a handful of companies with unclear business dealings and virtually no online footprints.

[Krkr2]

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[Krkr2]

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